Cydia

Let's take a look at the Galileo, an attention-getting and useful product from the guys at Motrr.

Company

Motrr is a Santa Cruz based company who got their start in one of Kickstarter's most successful design projects at the time. They posted a $100,000 goal and were funded over $700,000 in 2012. Their Kickstarter page says founders Josh Guyot and JoeBen Bevirt are fanatics for good design, robots, and photography. Makes sense when you start playing with the Galileo!

In the Box

The packaging for Galileo is great, with strong paper boxing in white, and a photo of various angles of the Galileo on each surface. Inside the box you'll find the Galileo itself, it's USB charging cable, and 2 adapter inserts (for various iPhone sizes).

There's even a "Designed in California" mantra with an additional "Ethically manufactured in China" bit of text - this box will fit right in at your local Apple store.

Design

At it's core, the Galileo is a Bluetooth robotic motion control device for the iPhone. A smooth rubberized white or black exterior allows for moving your iPhone 90 degrees from vertical to landscape, and rotate a full 360 degrees. The motion to rotate the iPhone took a few times to get used to, but then seemed natural.

A micro-USB port is at the back to charge the device, and it seems to get a couple hours of battery life off a 1-2 hour charge. The bottom of the device has a standard tripod mount. Galileo is built with an obvious focus on quality material and design.

(excuse my dirty Galielo there - I've been using it often!)

That all sounds nifty, but where the Galileo shines is it's partner apps. The Motrr guys allow third-party developers to use the device via Bluetooth, and there's over a dozen apps already live to allow Galileo to do all sorts of things. Everything from live facial tracking, remote monitoring, spherical panoramas, and time lapse videos.

My favorites have been Sphere, for 360 degree panoramas, and IguanaLapse, for time lapse videos. I took the Galileo to San Francisco for JailbreakCon; here's some of the fun stuff shot there with those two apps and Galileo.

Grab with your mouse and drag to move around. There's a hidden TCCenTex, Subywrex, myself and my son Charles in there.

Lunch at WWJC (might see chpwn and rpetrich in there)

Shot with iPhone 5S, Galileo, and IguanaLapse.

With both these apps, everything is automatic once you hit "go." Sphere simply needs to be connected to Galileo (Bluetooth needs to be on, then you simply rotate the Galileo to get it to connect to your iPhone), and press start in the app. The Galileo does a nifty 360 degree rotation on it's own, while Sphere captures all the imagery to create it's panorama. Using this thing around San Francisco got all sorts of conversation going!

IguanaLapse is similar to many time lapse software products, but made so much cooler with Galileo. You can set up a path for IguanaLapse, and leave your iPhone when you press start. It will create a time lapse (like the one from above), telling Galileo when to move so the path is correct. It's a great effect, and previously really difficult to do from an iPhone.

I didn't play around much with the facial recognition and home monitoring apps, other than to see they do in fact work. Would be great for filming stage events or for home security as well.

Price / Conclusion

The Galileo is $149.95 for the Bluetooth version. There's also a $99 30-pin version for iPhone 4/4S running iOS 7. Both come in white or black. If you're an amateur photographer, or even a pro, Galileo adds unique ability to your iPhone photography.

We're giving the Galileo 4.5 leaves - it's a bit pricier than we'd hope, but is really amazing if you use your iPhone for photography!

Courtesy of the great people at Motrr, we’re giving away a black Galileo with Bluetooth. Use the widget below to get entries into the raffle giveaway!

This thing is truly amazing! had such a fun time with Kyle running around SanFrancisco using this thing. At one point Kyle jumped out of my car half way down the crooked street to try and grab a 360. lol. Fun times.